Edited by Bridget Drinka
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 350] 2020
► pp. 143–160
This paper is an abbreviated version, in English, of Martínez-Areta (2016), in which I argue that the ergative alignment of historical Basque came about as a result of an active reanalysis of passive predicates in Proto-Basque. This view has been previously defended by Trask (1977), who drew on the template of finite verbs. Since the first slot of intransitives (representing S) and of transitives (representing P) are identical, P must have been also a clause-level S at a previous stage prior to an active reanalysis of passive clauses. I attempt to solve some problems of Trask’s proposal, and suggest that some finite verbs of the past/irrealis beginning with A actually come from active clauses.